Kumamoto, Nov. 10 -- The Indian women's double pairing of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand started off their campaign at the Kumamoto Masters Japan 2026 badminton tournament on Tuesday with a win.

Treesa and Gayatri reached pre-quarters, beating higher-ranked Japanese pair Hinata Suzuki and Nao Yamakita 21-17, 21-14 in 42 minutes at the Kumamoto Prefectural Gymnasium, as per Olympics.com.

It was their first meeting against the 13th ranked pairing, which won the Canada Open this year and finished runners-up at the Denmark Open Super 750 last month.

Treesa-Gayatri will next face third seeds and world number five Rin Iwanaga and Kie Nakanishi of Japan in the round of 16.

The two pairs are level 1-1 in their head-to-head record, with Tr...